A Heart so Dark and Hollow

The hollow heart

Under the guise of an apology she offered the king a cursed fruit. The young king, out of courtesy, accepted her gift, wanting nothing more than for her to leave him in peace, for his affections for her had withered like leaves in the winter.

As soon as he bit into the fruit he had been given, a great pain pierced his despondent heart. At once, but far too late, the king realised that he had fallen victim to a curse, and had little time to break it apart before it would kill him. His suspicions about his former lover had been confirmed.

Mind and body in pain, he knew he could not make the work of his enemies so easy. Swiftly, his lips weaved a spell to counter the curse. Lamentably, he was only halfway successful; barely managing to slow down the curse.

With her plan foiled, the princess revealed that the curse would consume his heart until he was no more.

The king, although enraged and deeply affected by this betrayal, banished the princess to the human world for a century. He could do nothing but wait for the curse to run its course, and join the rest of his deceased family members. He cursed the hand that fate had dealt him, and cursed love, for if he had never harboured affection for the princess, he would have seen through her lies.

The ruling lords of the Day Palace refuted all claims of being associated with the princess, as there was no evidence to suggest that she had been acting under their orders. The sinister members of the Day Palace were absolved of suspicion.

In the shadows, they gloated, tasting the king’s impending doom.

Now, the lord of the Night Palace, and the king of all Fae, awaits his demise as his emotions fade into the abyss created by his curse. It was said that his curse can only be broken by the touch of love, but what good can love do to a heart that is no longer whole?

Another question remains: as he loses more and more of his emotions and steadily descends into a spiral of unfeeling, who will ever get close enough to see beyond the emptiness slowly eating up his heart . . . and love the cold man that he has become?

Now.

Love is a terrible thing, and anyone who thinks otherwise is only setting themselves up for an eternity of heartache.

It was the pursuit of love that led my mother to contract a disease from one of her many lovers, which ultimately led to her death. It was the love my father had for his wife that morphed him into a paranoid man after she was gone. It was the absence of love that drove a wedge between my half-sisters and I, pushing them away from my reach,

Feet apart, with soles pressing into the soft grass beneath, I stand in a field of flowers as bright and fragrant as can be. I adjust my stance again, and raise my arms. A clap, then a series of elegant turns and leaps follow, twisting my body in a dance.

My father would have reprimanded me for dancing so close to the edge of the Dividing Forest, the border between our world and Ssenkrad, land of the Fae. Unfortunately, he died a few months ago when a deadly plague seized our little village.

Dancing is the only rope keeping me from sinking into the depths of grief.

I leap into the air with a soft grunt. A small pain runs up my ankle when I land. I have been dancing for far too long.

Father's death orphaned me, as well as my half-sisters, Namma and Tokya. But those two have a completely different way of grieving, or maybe they are not grieving at all. They still loathe that their father fell for a loose woman—my mother—who also had a child of her own—me—and resent him for it, even after his passing.